Lately
by Backgroundnoise
Summary: Ned had that look in his eyes again, as if the world start and end in Charlotte Charles.
1. Sins

Disclaimer: I know that I don't own Pushing Daisies or Lee Pace… But I can dream.

Ranting: NC-15, just to be safe.

Summary: As if somehow, a small memory of Ned had remained inside her.

Paring: Ned/Chuck

Dedicated to my patient and lovely Beta; thank you very much for the magic.

Spoilers: Everything until Corpsicle is fair game.

Title: Lately

Chapter Title: Sins (I)

By Lylou

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_Chuck: __"Where've you been?"  
Ned: "Not important."  
Chuck: "It's important to me. I missed you."_

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Some nights, he still woke up uneasily at midnight, as if he had just remembered that he had accidently left the gas turned on; and always, for those very first seconds, Ned didn't remember that he wasn't alone in that bedroom anymore; that now, his bed seemed narrower than it used to be and that there was a faint scent of honey floating in the dark air of the room.

Always, in those first seconds, Ned needed some time in the blurred space between dreams and awareness to allow himself to re-remember that he could hear someone else's breathing in the room.

_Her_ breathing.

For the first nights she had been there his exhausted mind had travelled in vain during unending sleepless hours, just listening to her calm breathing in the bed next to his. He'd think, not so much about all of the intricate moral and metaphysic possible consequences of having a re-alive-untouchable girlfriend, but more on how now their clothes were mixed in the same closet. Sometimes, when he put on one of his shirts it still held a faint trace of her warm scent in the black fabric, making Ned feel dizzy and keeping a silly smile on his face throughout the day; until the night, when he slowly unbuttoned his black shirt and that warm scent, like peaches heated by the final days of the summer sun, faded. Because that was how the pale skin of her neck and collarbone smelled.

Or at least, how he thought they would smell.

Of course, Ned had never gotten close enough to her to discover if his daybreak musings were true, but that didn't stop him from the addictive and incredibly painful routine of imaging it. It was just like the way Ned couldn't help but look disguisedly at her while Chuck was kneading in the kitchen, smiling radiantly because the flour had stuck to her small hands. She'd wring them delicately, and it made her look even more like something unreal and definitely out of this world.

And actually, she was.

Ned held his self-destructive, yet delightful mental thread the best he could and turned slowly in his bed to look at her; Chuck was sleeping safely and quietly only a few feet from him.

The certainty that this was how they were going to spend the rest of the nights of their attached but separated lives made Ned feel terribly sad and sick. It was as if suddenly all the honey and pure joy that she had brought to his life had transformed into something bitter, unknown and rotten.

And soon, they'd have something else bitter, unknown, and rotten to face.

Ned had finally brought her home after two miserable days of looking for her everywhere, all the while torturing himself with the idea that maybe he would not see Chuck ever again; until he finally found her, sitting on the frozen ground and looking at her father's headstone, covered by the snow.

And that had been the very first time in his life that the Ned had said an irrevocable "No" to her -- under the snow, when she begged him to bring her father back, even if it was only just for one painful minute.

After that, he put his coat upon her shoulders and remained, silently standing behind her for some minutes as an involuntary witness of her too lonely and too sour goodbye.

He was secretly sure that at any moment, the woman he loved would magically fade under his big coat at the same speed with which she had appeared in his life again.

But she didn't.

And then, under the quiet snow and looking at her, Ned couldn't help but think about how his life would be now without the sound of her chuckle fluttering around him, or without her big green eyes, looking grateful, lovingly and a million things more, and making Ned feel for the very first time as if he was much more than only a tall and lonely shadow who smelled like flour and baking powder.

After some minutes more in silence, Chuck turned to look at him with wet eyes and a small smile dancing on her lips; and when she spoke that snowy and cold night seemed less chilly to Ned.

"Let's go home."

He couldn't help a half smile when he heard the word "home" from her lips, and then was the very first time that Ned realized, that actually, it was true; she was _living_ with him, in his home.

They were just like a normal couple, sharing the shower, the bedroom, the closet… and they both felt that maybe those walls were something worth going back to.

But that illusion of warmth and normality faded fast and painfully when Ned felt a familiar dark and latent pain in his chest when he realized that it was impossible for him to do something as normal as hold her hand to help Chuck to get up from the snowy ground.

So she walked by herself as they headed for the car, and they left the frozen cemetery behind them.

After two days without her, Ned waited until Chuck was completely asleep, and did something that he hadn't done since their first night together – that night when Chuck slept in his former bed and he imagined her across the wall -- he locked the door.

Of course, there was an urgent need in his shaking hands to protect her and her secret when he closed the bolt, but there was also a dark and hidden spot in his mind which convinced him that, otherwise, Chuck would run away from him while he was sleeping.

_You__ know it, but you don't want to admit it –you feel it even now, as she sleeps safely in the bed beside yours: something has changed. The spell has broken and you are not Prince Charming anymore; reality has caught up with the both of you._

Ned sighed. Frustrated and unable to sleep he turned again in his bed to look at her; he could make out her body's silhouette under the blankets through the darkness in the bedroom.

_Their __bedroom._

Again, Ned had to remind himself that now he was sharing his bedroom, his life and his secret with somebody.

_S_he was still sleeping, but Chuck seemed to have developed an unconscious mechanism that always made her wake up only a few minutes after him. She was aware of that fact too, and secretly liked the idea, as if it was some kind of invisible bond that connected her to him; it was like after he had touched her cheek and brought her back to life, her body was still able to remember him, as if somehow, a small memory of Ned had remained inside her.

Even before she opened her eyes, Chuck could feel his gaze upon her body through the shadowy bedroom, and turned slowly to look at him with a small smile dancing on her lips before asking warmly: "You can't sleep?"

Ned didn't answer immediately, he just looked at her intensely and in silence for a few seconds. At first Chuck thought that he had just woken up of a nightmare, especially when she saw a spark of fear crossing fast behind his eyes… or maybe it wasn't fear, maybe it was pain.

And then Chuck couldn't help a rush of love overwhelming her when she realized that Ned never had seemed that much like that lonely nine-year-old little boy she knew once, until now.

Suddenly Chuck felt the urge to run to his bed and comfort him and wait underneath the blankets with him, until the last cell of her body was impregnated with his scent.

And if his touch wouldn't kill her instantly, leaving him miserable and devastated for the rest of his life, she would have jumped underneath the covers with him and leave all the rest outside that bed.

Ned cleared his throat softly and spoke with that mix of shyness and stutter that she loved:

"Sort of. … I… I'm tired, but my body doesn't want to give up."

Chuck wrinkled her nose gracefully in the darkness and smiled softly before she whispered:

"Yeah… I know the feeling; it's weird when you want to rest but your brain is still awake and kicking."

"Yes… Something like that."

Chuck looked at the long shadow laying in the bed next to hers, deathly sure that there was something else he needed to say her, and knowing deep down, that somehow she was the reason for his insomnia and elusive tone.

But everything else faded when Chuck felt an instant sharp lance of guilt and regret, hearing Ned speak without even looking at her and in a low and urgent voice that she never had heard from him before:

"You are okay, right? I mean… You, you have been fine for the last two days, haven't you?"

And then, in their dark bedroom Chuck could feel her heart breaking noisily under the weight of his fragile voice, his concern and his love. Hot tears formed fast and burned her behind her eyes; when she whispered, Chuck's voice sounded tearful, overwhelmed and a thousand things more:

"I haven't been okay… But I've been safe."

Her answer seemed to comfort Ned, even if he had clearly heard the trembling and the tears in her voice through the ever brightening room.

His tone changed a bit and Ned spoke warmly with a little smile on his lips and a small teasing tone in his voice:

"And what have you being doing during these two days…?"

Chuck could felt her heart stopping inside her chest and all her blood coagulating painfully in her veins, knowing that she was going to lie to the man that had given her a second chance of living without asking anything in exchange. She knew that it would torture and hurt him in a million different ways if she said something like: _"I have been busy avoiding you and almost telling that creepy man who lives underground and seems to stalks us how Digby and I are alive again. It's all because I was feeling miserably lonely and mad at you, and mostly unconsciously but partially on purpose, I wanted to hit you where it would hurt the most. And I know very well that what hurts you the most is me, and _our_ secret."_

So she lied:

"Nothing. Just… thinking."

Ned's voice sounded worried, sad, and something else, something small and dark that Chuck couldn't guess then, but even then it still made her feel as guilty and depressed as she ever felt during all the time she had spent next to him.

"Something I should know about…?"

A brutal and shrill voice in Chuck's mind screamed: _"He knows it; he knows that you almost ruined everything, and he isn't going to be able to forgive you. You are going to lose him, and your re-gifted life isn't going to be worthwhile without him."_

So Chuck lied to him for the second time that morning.

"No. Nothing."

Ned looked intensely at her, wishing he could go to Chuck's bed and kiss her thoroughly until she forgave him, or until she told him the truth, whichever came first; because he knew then that she was lying, that she had been lying to him since she had woken up. But he was too happy to have her back that he decided not to think about it.

At least, not today.

And Ned was an expert in doing that.

An expert in hiding all the unpleasant things and putting them together in some dark corner of his mind, and acting as if he had forgotten about them, as if they didn't exist anymore.

And of course this time wasn't an exception; but somehow, the thought of going to Chuck's bed and crushing his body against hers and kissing and loving her until she was moaning his name, tortured Ned for longer than usual; until in an uncommon fit of sanity, he decided that it was enough torture and impossible delight for the moment.

But before he surrender completely to their reality again, Ned had time to think about how it would be to wake up every day with Chuck's taste in his mouth and with the rest of his senses flooded by that honey scent of hers -- it was enough to drive any man mad -- or how it would be to have her underneath him until there wasn't a centimeter of Chuck's body left that didn't belong completely to his hands and his mouth, and then continue, until she wasn't able to feel anything but the trace of his saliva upon her skin and his hot breathing in her ear.

And then, Ned got up of his bed just like any other day, having dreamt of her only to discover that he had fallen in love again when he woke.

He was deadly sure that having just a small and untouchable piece of Chuck was much better than not having her at all, and unaware that today, everything was about to change forever, and that he would have to say goodbye to the woman he loved.

To be continued…

Comments are love.


	2. Secrets

Disclaimer: I know that I don't own Pushing Daisies or Lee Pace… But I can dream.

Ranting: NC-15, just to be safe.

Summary: That pleading, hushed and broken tone made Charlotte Charles want to kiss him to death. Literally.

Paring: Ned/Chuck Dedicated to my patient and lovely Beta; thank you for the magic.

Spoilers: Everything until Corpsicle is fair game.

Title: Lately

Chapter Title: Secrets (II)

By Lylou

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_-"…We've all done things we're not proud of._

_We all have secrets."_

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Since the first time she entered the Pie Hole -- the very same night that Ned brought her back to life and drove her there, Chuck had loved the mixed scents of flour, fruit and baking powder floating in the surprisingly familiar air of that place.

And without knowing really why, she had loved that place immediately; some nights after that Chuck came to understand it was because every corner, every booth, every floor tile and everything there, was somehow attached to Ned.

Everything in that place _was_ Ned.

But above all, what Chuck would remember from that first night and many after, later while she was trying to sleep in a strange bed, would be the savory and hot scent of the pie maker above all the others tempting smells there. She'd remember the way he smiled at her from behind the bar; as if he wasn´t really saying with that warm and gentle tone of his, the one that always seemed warmer and gentler when he was talking to her, that they would never ever touch, or she would be dead. Again. Forever.

But that first night in a closed pie shop Chuck didn't pay too much attention to his words; of course, she had understood what he had said about the touching issue but all that seemed blurred and vague to Chuck while he was speaking and looking at her with that strange beautiful blend and trade mark of shyness, charm, sweetness, magic, that was, above all, Ned.

And Chuck would remember later that then had been the very first time of the many, in which she had thought that it was almost unfairly easy to fall in love with that man.

Now, almost four months after that night, but still under the spell of his voice and his warm glance upon her, Chuck could sense his now familiar savory scent mixed with all the other sweet smells in the Pie Hole; even today, the day after she returned from her lonely one-way journey.

The faint white light, typical of a snowy day, slipped in through the circular windows of the still closed local and spilled everywhere.It gave it the look of something frozen and solitary that Chuck instantly hated with all her heart; the Pie Hole always had seemed bright, busy, warm and safe to her, and she needed that this morning more than ever.

Chuck needed small slices of what was familiar and known to her; she needed the bitter smell of the fresh coffee impregnating everything there, or the soft conversation from the booths, the bells clinking in the door, Olive fluttering around Ned… Ned.

He was busy now in that cold and small room at the end of the kitchen, the one she always had secretly hated, bringing fruit back to life at the other side of a locked door.

Chuck didn't like when he acted like that.Actually, it disgusted and saddened her so much that sometimes she couldn't help to wonder if she really knew the man she loved.

Because the Ned she knew wasn't the distant and cold man locked in a narrow room filled with rotted fruit, that had left her outside, alone, peeling apples and staring at an empty restaurant knowing that she hated being alone.

The Ned she knew was the man who knew how she felt, and didn't care to wake up half hour earlier everyday to take all the rotted fruit out of that damn room and to bring it back to life in the large and warm kitchen, only so that she won't feel lonely.

Like now.

Chuck felt hot tears forming fast behind her eyes and clouding her vision, and she didn't realize that she had cut the back of the hand instead of the apple until blood appeared, dark and intense, through her wet vision:

"Damn it."

When she moved the blood dripped, staining the elastic of her green cashmeresweater, and a few drops fell upon the wooden counter; Chuck sighed, frustrated, in the empty kitchen, left the guilty knife and looked for the paper towels.

She watched, mesmerized, as the paper strip turned red immediately upon contact with her blood, and without knowing really why, she couldn't help but think: _There is something different in your blood now and forever._

_A faint trace of ozone and death poisoning you, and stopping you painfully from going to that narrow room and crushing your mouth against the man you love --from kissing and touching him until he stops looking at you in that heartbreaking way that makes you feel guilty.__That kind of difference._

But of course, she could never ever do something like that.So she was left with the certainty that she would never feel Ned's careful hands upon her skin, despite hours spent studying and memorizing every line of them, and the sureness that she'd never know how her nickname would sound among broken whispers, with his hot breathe in her ear, underneath him and feeling nothing but his touch…

All that was like a dull ache in her side – she was learning how to life with it, like an open wound that kept her bleeding, painfully, but still alive… but some days, that wound was too deep, too painful.

Chuck looked again at the small blood drops on the counter and a dark and dangerous idea crossed her mind… What if there was an_ antidote _to that particular poison hers of being alive, but perpetually infected by death?

She was lost and darkly mesmerized with those thoughts , so she didn't heard the door of the small room opening behind her.She didn't even notice that Ned was in the kitchen until he was at her back, watching her intensely -- but when Chuck turned and saw him, all the thoughts of the antidote, death, and the man in the sewer fled from her mind.

"What…Are you okay?"

All kind of distances between them seemed to disappear when Ned's concerned and alarmed voice flooded the empty place, and even more, when he quickly tore more paper towels and pressed them carefully against her wounded hand.

Suddenly, she couldn't remember exactly why they were that far-away or the misery and guilt she'd felt wandering during two days, knowing that he was feeling miserable and guilty too. She even forgot that if his long fingers accidentally touched her, she would die instantly in front of him. Suddenly the only thing that mattered was Ned's almost touch in the warm kitchen.

It mattered so much that Chuck could almost felt the warmth of his skin through the layers of paper and blood.

Almost.

She cleared her throat and whispered, overwhelmed by his nearness and the faint scent of the after-shave that Chuck secretly wished would cling her hair and her clothes:"It's nothing…only a superficial wound."

_Liar.__ It's not superficial wound. You're bleeding to death, because even with him so close, looking atyou with that dangerous mixture of love, guilt and concern, the only thing you want to do is to run away and break his heart again._

_Because you still think that he deserves it, just a little._

Chuck looked at his big hand covering hers completely through layers of paper towels, and felt his sad gaze fixed on her, as if somehow Ned could read her awful thoughts, but loved her anyway.

_Well, maybe he can -- maybe after he brought you back to life there is something small of you inside him, too; maybe that could be enough. It used to be enough… __But not now._

_Not while you're still willing to hurt yourself to hurt him."_

To avoid betraying her destructive mindset, Chuck closed her eyes slowly, and felt the heat radiating off Ned's body beside her own, his hot breathing against her loose hair, and her hand underneath his.

_This is real.And the not-touching-thing doesn't make it, or him, less real and painful._

Before she opened her eyes again, Chuck heard a faint sigh in her ear before he released her hand and separated from her painfully; taking his warmth with him.

Ned spoke in a polite but authoritarian tone that he didn't often use with her. "The peroxide is in the other room… I'll go to find it.Stay here."

It wasn't a question and he didn't want an answer, so Chuck spoke up anyway. "It won't be necessary, I'm…"

But Ned had already left her alone in that lonely kitchen for a second time that morning.

Chuck looked at the bloodstained and crumpled absorbent paper upon the wooden counter top with infinite hate before throwing it to a corner in a rage.

Ned appeared again in the kitchen with a small white plastic bottle that seemed smaller in his hands.

_He looks even taller when he is upset. __Especially when he is upset with you._

Chuck felt small, fragile and above all, lonely then; she sank slowly to the cold, green tiled floor, leaning her back against the cabinet door.

Ned walked to her and looked at her in silence a few seconds before sitting down next to her, leaving a gap between them.He bent his long legs and looked at her with his lately habitual mixture of care and guilt in his eyes; there was no trace of the authoritarian and distant Ned there.

Chuck stretched her wounded hand and Ned smiled lightly before opening the bottle.

Cold, transparent and burning drops of peroxide fell in her open wound and made her to groan low.Peroxide in her open wound was a painfully apt metaphor for the way she felt now.

But then Ned blew a puff of air in her wound carefully, in that intimate and charming gesture that broke Chuck's hear.It reminded her of the good times, and of how far away they were now.

"… Sorry.I know it hurts…"

And without even thinking what she was doing, Chuck answered."Yes… It does."

Ned looked at her, mortified, and pressed his lips together, a painful and scared expression in his eyes that Chuck had never seem in him before. He looked away and his guilty sight was lost on the green tiles:

"..I'm sorry…I know that it probably doesn't mean anything to you by now, but I… I want you to know that if I could… somehow…"

He didn't know how to end his sentence, like all the words the Pie Maker knew weren't enough anymore.Secretly she was thankful, because his voice sounded too broken and too sad for the tall and wonderful man, all grown up from the shy boy she'd waited for.

And suddenly, the most charming man she'd ever known, seemed sure that the abyss was the only thing that remain in front of them.It was like hope had slipped out of the door while they weren't looking.

Chuck felt hot tears flooding her throat and her eyes, and very sad and small smile appeared on her lips as she spoke in a wrecked and defeated tone:"I've already forgiven you.That was the easy part."

The pie maker looked at her with a mixture of confusion, guilt, and a hint of optimism in his eyes, and Chuck felt even worst when the only thing he said was a very gentle, very caring, and very Ned:"…Don't cry… please."

She wiped away the tears with a fast and nervous move and smiled sadly. It was unfair; she was the broken, resurrected and lonely one but still she couldn't keep away from him, or hate for looking at her like he was doing now, or for speaking with a voice that was that full of love, fear, tenderness and guilt that silenced all the mean, terrified voices in her own mind.

_If you've already forgiven him, why are you crying, and why is his heart breaking into a million pieces in front of you?_

-"Chuck please… look at me."

That pleading, hushed and broken tone made Charlotte Charles want to kiss him to death.

Literally.

She looked at him finally, and a warm rush of love poisoned her rage and hate when she saw Ned's shy smile and grateful gaze, but specially, when she heard his unmistakably hopeful tone too close to her:"Thank you."

And then, the girl named Chuck smiled brightly for the first time in three days, even with the moisture of her tears burning her cheeks.

"How's your hand?"

Ned had completely recovered his familiar warm and gentle tone, and was looking intensely at her with his back leaned up against the cabinet door.

_He can't touch me, but right now, he's touching the same thing I'm touching._

Somehow, Chuck found that extraordinarily comforting and normal.Normal for them, anyway.

"Much better, I'm not bleeding anymore.Thank you."

Ned looked at her as if he hadn't seen her in years and smiled shyly:"You're welcome."

Chucks gaze left the Pie Maker and his charming smile for a moment to fix it in her green ballet flats.She asked softly and a slightly small teasing tone:"So… is this how is going to be every time?You just say the right words, that'll be it?"

Ned looked thankful and overwhelmed for a very few seconds, marveling at the discovery, that without knowing how and when, he had become Charlotte Charles's anchor.

_This is too good and too bright to be your life baker boy. You should be careful; maybe there is a surprise inside this pie…_

And actually, there was.

But Ned didn't know that yet, and brushed away that dark and premonitory voice of his mind, still under the spell of her words, and chuckled softly and delighted in that increasingly warm kitchen.

Chuck felt a familiar hot and wonderful vertigo in her stomach at his deadly combination of sexy, charming and shy tone when he said:"Of course.

This is how it's going to be."

Ned smiled softly and looked at her in such an intense and powerful way that Chuck knew instantly and without a doubt, that he was kissing her.

But not the kind of friendly, respectful, in-front-of-parents kiss type.

No. In his mind Ned had pushed her up against the cabinet and had his big hands underneath her grey dress and his hot tongue into her mouth, kissing her thoroughly and consuming her.

Of course, it was only in his mind.

However, she knew it and it was enough, so Chuck smiled at him, hoping that somehow he could know that right now, she was digging her nails in his bare back and moaning his name.

Ned smiled a bit embarrassed when he spoke, as if his imagination had betrayed him with his teasing and anything but shy tone.

"I… I don't have more secrets…"

And then, the girl named Chuck wasn't smiling anymore.

She had one, and one of the big ones; the kind of secret that could make everything go the hell forever without second chance; or a third one in her case.

Charlotte Charles had run away from him and from his warm spell three days ago, and in that time she had almost betrayed their secret and everything else they were, as if all the love, faith and promises between them didn't mean anything; and even now, there was still a part of her screaming her to do it, to hurt him and made him bleed in a way that no one else could.

_You can admit it -- let him know how you almost told everything to a stranger, then sit back to watch his heart breaks in front of you -- or tell him that his worst fear was knocking at your door only a night ago—or that you are not as perfect as he thinks you are.Break the spell and tell the man that loves you more than anything how you were willing to run away to never go back._

_Or you can lie to him again, and pray that truth and fate never knock at your door._

So the girl named Chuck smiled brightly and lied.

"Me neither."

Of course, she couldn't know that in actuality, fate was about to knock at their door.

To be continued…

Comments are always like sex and coffee combined.


	3. Crash

Disclaimer: I don't own Pushing Daisies or Lee Pace… Sad but true.  
Ranting: R  
Summary: Ned had that look in his eyes again, as if the world start and end in Charlotte Charles.

Paring: Ned/Chuck  
Dedicated to my patient and lovely Beta, thank you for the magic.  
Spoilers: Everything until Corpsicle is fair game.  
Title: Lately  
Chapter Title: Crash (III)

By Lylou

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_-__You can't just touch someone's life and be done with it…_

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Olive Snook entered the Pie Hole that morning wearing big and dark sunglasses.

She hadn't slept more than a couple of hours the night before, and now she had two dark circles under her eyes.

She had been too busy thinking over Lily's "vanilla" induced confession to sleep.

When she was just a little girl, Olive had learned that there were two kinds of secrets:

First: the small, usual and almost harmless kind of secret that people usually keep to themselves; for instance, her crush on Ned.

And second: the big, more unusual and destructive kind of secret that people keep from everyone else; for instance, Lily's devastating: "I'm Charlotte's mother."

Because that was exactly the kind of secret that could ruin lives; the kind of secret that blows everything away in the blink of an eye.

Olive knew that very well, she could feel it even now, while it was still safely hibernating in her mind, getting bigger and more powerful every second; as if these type of secrets were some strange kind of creature, which fed off fear and loneliness.

Olive knew that.

She had spent the whole night thinking about it, and about the girl named Chuck.

And Ned.

She thought about how the truth would affect their lives. It was easy and tempting to just avoid it, and run from the truth while you live in a bubble of love, sugar, flour and bells on the door, but Olive Snook knew that sort of truth was patient. It didn't mind to wait for years, crouched in silence in some dark corner, waiting to spring one day.

And the truth was that Charlotte Charles wasn't still that annoying, cheesy, damn perfect and inaccessible brunette she had once hated.

Now she was a real person to her; more than that, it could be said that she was her friend; Olive had seen her scared, lonely, crying, laughing, lost… Chuck was a real person and she deserved the truth. Even if it would change everything, even if it would destroy the fragile dynamic that all of them had built up. After all, she deserved to know that she wasn't as alone in the world as she thought she was.

Olive walked toward the kitchen slowly and saw Ned and Chuck, both seated on the green tiles and leaning against the same cabinet, there was a bottle of peroxide near them and Ned had that look in his eyes again, as if the world start and end in Charlotte Charles.

_He'll__ never ever look at you in that way, but it is good to have her back… He is always much better, when she is around_

"Hi Olive!"

Chuck tone was cheerful, but with Olive personal experience in crying, she could still hear the fading echo of tears in Chuck's voice; or at least, she thought she did.

Ned looked at her for the first time since she was there, without really seeing her, and smiled gently and joyfully at Chuck, still sitting next to him.

"Good morning."

Her own voice sounded almost normal when she spoke, and Olive saw, half sad and half fascinated, how Ned rose finally from the floor and how he looked, warmly and smiling shyly, at Chuck, getting up slowly and with the white bottle in her hand.

Olive saw Ned smiling in that particular and charming way of his that only showed when Chuck was around; then he walked towards the petit blonde and passed near her, so close, that the black fabric of his pants brushed her coat accidentally and Olive Snook closed her eyes involuntarily when she felt his body, his warmth and the faded scent of his after-shave floating around her during a few seconds _"Is that's how she feels all the time? Is this how it feels to be Charlotte Charles?"_

That thought saddened Olive a bit in spite that she was breaking, slow and painfully, the Pie Makers spell upon her a little bit every day.

Ned murmured a "Good morning" and said something to her in his habitual not-to-Chuck tone about the coffee machine while he passed at her side, but she didn't hear him.

When Olive opened her eyes again, she saw Chuck smiling sweetly at her.

And Olive Snook was sure then that she deserved the truth.

"…I'm happy to see you are here again."

Chuck smiled softly and spoke in a tone that proved she was happy to be there again, but that there was still something dark and dangerous inside her, screaming to the very sweet Charlotte Charles, to run away and never look back.

"Thank you. It's good to be back."

Both women looked each other in silence for some seconds, until Olive pointed at her wounded hand, smiling lightly, and broke the silence:

"Does it hurt?"

Chuck looked thoughtfully at her hand and spoke quietly, "No… Not as much as before."

The shorter woman looked around to see where Ned was. He was busy doing something in the bar and Olive spoke in an uneasy whisper.

"I have to talk to you."

Chuck looked at Ned, completely unaware of their small conspiracy and then looked again at the anxious blonde woman in front of her, and asked in a low voice, "About my aunts? Are they okay?"

Olive sighed, bit her lower lip and frowned delicately while her mental gears spun at full speed, and for a moment, she wasn't really going to say anything, she was really willing to live with that secret; but then she saw worry and fear in Charlotte Charles eyes mixed with something else, something that Olive couldn't indentify then; something that she would only recognize some hours later, when it would be already too late for all of them.

"Chuck…There is something I have to tell you."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ned kicked the right front wheel of his Mercedes again, too mad to pay attention at the snow falling quietly on his black shoe.

Frustrated, he rested his gloved hands in the roof of the car, closed his eyes and breathed again the nocturnal chilly air; it was so freezing that Ned felt his respiratory tracts aching and all his senses numbing momentary by the cold and the pain.

But only for a moment.

Because next, Ned remembered that she wasn't there.

And he was in that snowy cemetery again, looking for Charlotte Charles for second time around in less than 24 hours.

But this time, she wasnt there.

Ned finally clambered inside the car and slammed the door shut.

Chuck had left, unseen and without a word, out the kitchen door that same morning. It was almost funny: one moment he was busy looking for the sugar bowls to refill them and thinking again that life can be beautiful, and next, she was gone, leaving only a very silent Olive Snook there with a slight spark of guilt and fear in her trembling eyes that one very scared Pie Maker, didn't even see.

Chuck had left so fast that she had forgotten her coat on the rack, and Ned couldn't help but feel a rush of worry for her mixed with an overwhelming sense of predestination and inevitability that he hadn't felt the last time she went away.

"_She is not going to come back this time"_

That had been repeating in his mind all over again during the whole day.

Ned pressed his lips and sighed defeated in his car. Before the cemetery, he had been in their apartment, on the snowy rooftop, outside her aunts' house… he had even been in that meadow, the same one where they had a picnic the first weekend after he brought her back from death, back in the very last days of summer. Even now, Ned could still remember clearly the orange sunset light upon her and the sound of her laugh, still a bit strange to him then, surrounding them.

And that was the first time Ned knew he loved her.

He closed his eyes miserable, feeling completely lost, still remembering that far evening in a cold and lonely car with a, now useless, transparent screen.

The truth was that the Pie Maker had been happy.

It was weird and wonderful to think about it because Ned never had thought that he deserved to be happy in any way, that someday, he would be as happy as he had been with Charlotte Charles.

Because even if he had lost her forever, all the happiness, all the love and all the joy she had brought to his life, would be enough to fulfill two lifetimes.

"_Maybe these months was all __we were supposed to have. Maybe it is better that way"_

With that and feeling terribly lost, tired and scared, the Pie Maker started the car and left.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ned looked mesmerized at the flames in the overwhelming empty kitchen of their –his- apartment, when he heard her keys in the door.

For a moment, he forgot the trepidation and the loneliness of the last hours and turned fast in their kitchen just when Charlotte Charles appeared in the doorsill.

She was soaked. And not in the cinematographic and romantic way. No; her hair, her clothes, her shoes…everything was drenched; she didn't look as if she would have been walking melancholically under the rain for hours, she looked more as if she was some kind of marine creature from the ocean floor.

"Hi."

Her voice sounded weak, and it trembled.

Ned took some steps towards her, feeling immediately relieved, angry, happy and tired at the same time, and stopped dead only a few meters from her, but enough to see that her lips were blue and her skin was paler than usual "_God…she is cold, she looks as if she was d…"_

And if everything was different, Ned would be already hugging and kissing her feverishly or pushing the both of them under the stream of the hot water until she didn't look like a beautiful corpse anymore.

But he couldn't.

And for one moment, as he stared at her, soaked, cold and guilty, the Pie Maker thought that his life would be much easier and less painful, without Charlotte Charles.

But only for a moment.

Because next he felt a consuming need to protect her; to never ever let Chuck out of his sight again, to locking the apartment door and throw away the key.

"_Wow, suddenly you are the evil dragon keeping the princes in the castle, instead of the prince charming_"

But he didn't care; Ned only could saw her soaked locks stuck to her beautiful features, her green drenched sweater and the small rain drops falling in the floor.

But he didn't say a word.

Suddenly, Ned felt terribly stupid and out of place, as if any word would break the spell and she would vanish under the rain, again, forever.

He didn't know what to say, or why she had run away from him again; because Ned couldn't know that some blonde waitress had said something to Chuck that had changed everything forever. That running away from him had nothing to do with them.

Ned couldn't know that.

"_She is still mad at you, she has just realized that she can't forgive you and is here only to grab her things and vanish from your life as fast as she came._

_And you are going to start__ to figure out how you are going to live without her."_

Chuck, totally oblivious to his mistaken train of thoughts, walked miserably and slowly to their bedroom and Ned heard her searching in the drawers and changing her soaked clothes.

He felt tears forming slowly behind his eyes and turned to look at the filled teapot upon the flames of the stove.

"_When was the last time you cried, baker boy?"_

Then Ned heard very soft steps behind him and knew that Charlotte Charles was at his back.

The only thing he felt then, were her small hands upon his shirt and her slow breathing against the fabric; without a word, she moved her arms slowly from his back until she embraced his waist.

And that was the first time Chuck hugged him.

Immobile, surprised and with his hands still resting on the counter, Ned closed his eyes when he felt her cold body pressed against his back thought the black fabric of his shirt, and her grip tightening around him.

He looked down carefully and saw her arms covered by a long sleeve sweater and one her small hands wearing one of the white soft gloves that they keep in the night table drawers, exactly where she had been searching a few moments ago, and which time ago had been used to manipulate resurrected peaches, but now, since Chuck was in his life it have acquire much more dangerous and delightful uses than peaches.

"_Maybe there is still hope__."_

But that thought, and the rest of them, flew off his head as soon as Ned felt her small gloved hand slipping under the black fabric of his shirt and "touching" delicately the skin of his stomach, to move down next, slow and dangerously, when she managed how to unbutton his belt blindly.

Ned breathing rushed and the earth stopped spinning around instantly when he felt her hand inside his pants, and he held on at border of the counter until his knuckles turned white.

"_Don't move… Don't you dare move."_

Ned closed his eyes slowly and felt the warmth radiating off her body leant against his back, the trace of water that her soaked hair was leaving in his shirt and all the delicious small sounds she was making while her gloved hand was dangerous and perfectly working inside his pants.

Still eyes closed, Ned swallowed hard and spoke in hushed, sexy and painful tone, as if his words were thousands of needles in his suddenly dry mouth:

"Chuck…what are you doing…?"

She loved the way he always says her nickname when he was a few seconds of losing control; low and hot, as if it was some kind of dark and consuming secret mantra known only by him.

She whispered and her words muffled by the black fabric of his shirt, "Isn't it obvious?"

"Eh… yes, absolutely. No."

Ned felt her breathing changing slightly at his back but her hand didn't stop. Because that was the way she always makes things. Time ago, Ned had discovered that something insider her was dangerously alive and free and savage, and that every time Charlotte Charles wanted something, she acted first and thought later.

She was straightforward, fast and deadly in many ways and Ned loved every one of them. And that's how he knew she wasn't going to stop, not even when the teapot began to whistle after about five minutes.

She wanted him and wanted him now.

Back in his mind, Ned couldn't help to think that maybe right now, he was the luckiest bastard in earth; the woman he loved more than anything and who drove him mad wanted to have sex with him in their apartment kitchen, even if it was their dangerous, and always imperfect kind of sex; but somehow, Ned knew that her hand inside his pants and his blood leaving his brain was related to some brutal and dark spot of guilt in her mind.

That the loneliness, the fury and the hate of the last days was what has pushed her hand inside his pants and what was making him moan her name in their kitchen; and what made her to brush her hand away just in time so neither of both would die that night.

After a few seconds, still immobile and in a broken and distant tone, Ned said, "You… you really shouldn't do that."

Chuck didn't answer and he continued whispering, half embarrassed half sad, and knowing perfectly she was still at his back

"…Because every time that you, we… you know, there is a moment where I cant help to think "_would she die, if I touch her now_?"

That was the first time he had said it out loud and it felt even worse than he had imagine, but he continued anyway, because it was already too late to stop and going back again to the "_What if you didn't have to… be dead_" part.

So, he opened his eyes and continued:

"…And it is unfair and crazy and stupid and terribly, terribly frightening."

And then, at his back, Charlotte Charles felt hot tears rolling down her frozen cheeks. Because in their private and secret language, what Ned had just said mean something like "_I love you that much, that scares me to death the mere idea of knowing that I can inadvertently kill you._"

So she spoke softly and pointedly, "Sometimes, when you, we…you know, I can't help to think "_would be worth it to die, if he touches me now?"_

Ned turned fast to look at her and spoke in a firm tone, "No. It wouldn't."

He grabbed her gloved hand, pressed it against his lips and kissed it again and again, her long fingers, the cut on the back of her hand from that same morning… The white fabric smelled slightly of him but he didn't care; he could feel her hand still cold underneath the fabric and he squeezed it lightly before leaving a way of hot kisses in her palm.

"It is okay Ned… Everything will be okay. Listen to me, there is something… something I need to do. "

He looked at her confused and she caressed his face gently before speaking, slow and a slightly tearful, "Ned… I have to go. I just came… to see you."

Not understanding what was going on, he raised his eyebrow in a typical Neds gesture that she loved, and whispered suddenly very scared:

"What?... You have to go?"

Chuck looked down for a moment and then she stared at him again.

"I'll be back."

He squeezed her hand, harder this time, and spoke against the white fabric:

"Don't… don't say that, the last person who said that to me never came back."

Chuck felt tears forming in her eyes at his scared tone and at his needy grip on her hand.

So, she spoke in the most convinced, sure and sincere tone she could and with a small smile in her lips in spite of the tears.

"I'll be back because I can't help it; it doesn't matter if I'm out for twelve hours, for two days or for twenty years, I always come back to you."

He smiled slightly relieved but didn't release her hand.

"I…I already know that, but Im afraid that this time I'll need something more than that to let you go. Sorry."

She smiled radiantly for the first time, because it wouldn't be the Ned she knew if he would have just let her go of his sight that easily and just like that, so with her free hand, she looked for something in her pocket and gave it to him.

"Then take this."

Ned looked at her father's small watch in his hand; he smiled sadly and looked at her, knowing that there wasn't anything he could do or say to stop her from whatever she was going to do.

"When I get back and then everything would be like before, or better… but I really need to do this Ned."

"By before you mean… before, when you didn't live here?"

Charlotte Charles smiled and shook her head in silence, then she pulled off the glove slowly and embraced carefully his waist.

"_She embraces as a little girl would do." _

Chuck leaned the side of her face against his chest and closed her eyes, letting her damp hair soak his shirt and breathing Ned, making sure that whatever happens next, she would never ever forgot his familiar scent floating in that kitchen, every muscle of his body immobile while she embraced him, his breathing against her hair… And the rest of little and wonderful things he was made of, then she left a small kiss on his chest upon the black fabric and raised her head to look at him for a few seconds before to speak:

"No, before when I didn't make you feel miserable."

And with that, Chuck got away from him slowly, and the muffled sound of the front door closing behind her and the whistle of the teapot in the kitchen, was everything Ned had left.

To be continued…

Comments are love.


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